Heather Kidd has called for the new Shropshire Council to stop setting targets for the number of parking tickets they should issue. A Which survey of local councils found that six of them admitted to setting targets for the number of parking tickets they should issue and one of these was the new Shropshire Council.
The others are Essex, Richmond upon Thames, Lewisham, Bromley, and Carmarthenshire.
Heather said “This is clearly against the Department for Transport’s guidance. Parking charges should be used as a tool to manage the demand for road use and not as a revenue raising measure. What is more puzzling is that the Shropshire Council says, on their web site, in response to the question ‘Do the attendants have targets for the number of penalty charges they issue?’ say
‘- No, definitely not. You may have read this in the press but in Shropshire this is not true. Targets are set for a minimum number of visits to specific locations/areas during the week.’
A Department of Transport spokesman said “Local authorities are expected to comply with our guidance and are accountable to their electorates, auditor and the courts.”